To preface this, I am aware that hybrids are hybrids but the spec is there and it's a lot of fun, further more the survivability is definitely there. As anyone who does heroic runs will undoubtedly know, finding a tank and healer is obviously a priority, so much so that an entire group of people can wait a large amount of time waiting for one, or waiting for one that would have the necessary skill and gear in order to beat the instance. I'm posting this because I hope cryptic will at least consider it.
This all started a couple days ago when my guild wanted to run Karr heroic, a lot of fun, problem is you need a tank. Well it's twelve, none of my tank friends are online (even in regular peak hours, finding a suitable tank can be a challenge, but I digress) We're about to give up when I decide, screw it, I love my GWF as dps but I want to try tanking, I've done it in other mmo's and I like to consider myself fairly skilled at it. So I buy the respec token, get the gear (Thankfully since the spec is rather unpopular the gear was ridiculously cheap.) And we go in first thing I notice holy <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> this guy can take a beating and them some. This is not some harebrained theory of hey if I get eighteen things to line up it'll work! No, GWF has the survivability for end game tanking in this game, they also have all the abilities needed to make them succeed. Although I'd be lying if I said Come and get it was perfect, seriously increase the area of effect, it's useless as is.
But anyway, back to the instance great survivability but a problem, my threat gen is horrible, single target is okay spam sure strike and IBS and hope it sticks which works unless the TR goes a tad crazy in the beginning but no, single target threat is okay, not great but I can work with it. However, aoe threat is laughable, I can get some to stick sometimes or I can be chasing every mob in the group I have to pull, it's almost like flipping a coin, it's bad, it's bad, bad, bad, bad, bad (end rant).
GWF's have amazing survivability as tanks, I'm not asking for more toys to stay alive I'm not asking for some super duper mega ability to make everyone win, but if you could redesign a feat in Sentinel to increase threat generation it would add a lot of life to this game. All I want is some ability or feat that just increases our threat gen that is all we need to be a viable tanking, force is it doable now? Yes, but a tank should not have to tell it's dps to wait and hold back if the tank has competitive gear and is knowledgeable about what they're doing.
Please cryptic consider it, having a second tank would do a lot to boost the validity of GWF they're already becoming slightly unpopular and you've made it so this class can tank, we have the cooldowns we have the aoe abilities and we have the armor, even our dailies are meant to tank. So please make this happen give us a buff to our threat gen, this is not a gamebreaking change, it wouldn't hurt pvp and you don't need to boost damage or our survivability, just a threat boost, that is it.
TLDR (I know it's long, I'm sorry.) Please give GWF a boost to their threat gen so the game has more diversity to group setup, GWF is the only real hybrid so if you're going to make us a hybrid allow us to have a chance at filling out a facet other than DPS.
Idea's in case this seems difficult sure strike threat gen boost 75% (up from 25%) (Threat generation is increased by 50% while weapon master is equipped (as well as +5 ac) Unstoppable increases threat gen by 33% (have a feat to affect unstoppable for sentinel GWF's, the list goes on this is not a complicated fix.)
More tank-capable classes are always good so as to cut down the queues, and extra threat-gen is irrelevant in PvP anyway.
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pandapaulMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 424Bounty Hunter
edited July 2013
What an embarrassing situation the GWF is in.. In the odd chance there is no possible fill In for a 5th spot in party.. The GWF gets a shot.. Has to use a respec to fill its roll.. And in conclusion isn't very good at that either...
Makes me want to cry.
And the bigger issue.. Stacking CWs is probably still a better tanking method than using a GWF will ever be..
Good post although a few things to consider.
Even GF threat generation stinks and needs some tweaking. The way the mechanic works and the considerable amount of AOE attacks that every class gets makes it almost impossible to 'tank' in the traditional sense. So you have to be creative even as a GF tank.
Geared groups don't need tanks. Lets face it the below statement posted by pandapaul is accurate.
Stacking CWs is probably still a better tanking method than using a GWF will ever be..
It's even true about the GF, some people might argue but if you stack enough CWs you can just throw a rogue in the mix to dodge tank.
It all comes down to lack of real play testing. When you make it possible for every class to succeed in every situation, players these days will tend to exploit that for all it's worth. Heck with the rogue changes coming, if they ever decided to buff CWs for who the heck reasons knows why, it's all together possible end game content would consist of groups of five CWs.
Even GF threat generation stinks and needs some tweaking. The way the mechanic works and the considerable amount of AOE attacks that every class gets makes it almost impossible to 'tank' in the traditional sense. So you have to be creative even as a GF tank.
Yeah I've noticed that the idea of tanking entire groups seems to be an impossibility but if you're going to have a tank it should perform this task. I really don't even get how a CW will pull threat since (at least in my cases) I'll be out damaging a purely CCing CW, so in terms of raw damage you would assume that I'd have threat over the CW unless of course their pull and gravity well abilities have a much higher threat amount than my aoeing does, but that just seems like backwards programming.
Geared groups don't need tanks. Lets face it the below statement posted by pandapaul is accurate.
It's even true about the GF, some people might argue but if you stack enough CWs you can just throw a rogue in the mix to dodge tank.
It all comes down to lack of real play testing. When you make it possible for every class to succeed in every situation, players these days will tend to exploit that for all it's worth. Heck with the rogue changes coming, if they ever decided to buff CWs for who the heck reasons knows why, it's all together possible end game content would consist of groups of five CWs.
Which is exactly why GF's and (hopefully) GWF's need appropriate threat management so that there is some degree of incentive to have them over 5 CW's or 4 CW's and a TR. Although threat management is hardly the cure for that, but let's save that issue for another day.
I think threat is best left to a GF for keeping the attention of targets that have alot of hp or can't be CC'd so they don't overextend themelves and leave everything else to the GWF as a stopping break for all the other adds while/so the group can distribute workloads as a cleric shouldn't really need to heal a GWF if they are working together with astral shield and unstoppable when not astral shield as an example.
Come and get its range and target limit do make it a joke of an encounter. Kinda like nobody using spinning blade once they can use slam/avalanche of steel. Maybe they should redesign that daily longer duration less damage per hit and nonstop come and get it affect on all targets in the area while active.
in terms of raw damage you would assume that I'd have threat over the CW unless of course their pull and gravity well abilities have a much higher threat amount than my aoeing does, but that just seems like backwards programming.
I do think that control affects should have more threat gain than just normal attacks. And I can see how it could be arguable that control effects would even have more threat gain than normal attacks/damage. Healing has always had threat gain in game like this as just a work around for better mob AI. I will agree though as far as damage/control effects/healing goes the threat gain is just a big question mark in this game.
Threat for GWF is definitely there, but not through Sentinel feats. You need to get threat through DPS. IMO Destroyer is an awesome tank. Excellent damage + 90% Unstoppable uptime + crazy AP gain = great recipe for Tanking. Sentinel mitigation is Overkill at the cost of dps so in my opinion an inferior tank.
Learning how to cancel WMS animation is definitely a game changer for GWFs who want to maximize DPS and Threat.
I agree that we have amazing threat and survivability with destroyer build, I'm just arguing that it's poor design. Sentinel spec should be for more than just a pvp spec, furthermore while you can tank with a dps spec I assure you the survivability with sentinel is far greater so assuming we eventually get harder fights than T2 heroic I'm hoping we'll need it. It's not a difficult change all we'd need is a higher threat multiplier.
As far as CC effects gathering more threat, I guess what I meant was it would be nice if there was some rock/paper/scissor effect that a tank (GWF included) could do in response to someone gaining a large amount of threat, rather than just spamming your greatest aoe damaging ability and hoping it sticks.
Lastly, for proponents of keeping GF as the only tank, I just don't see the point it just adds to the game it's not like if GWF was viable no one would want a GF have you seen how broken block is?
Actually it is not just Sentinel. I honestly feel Instigator still needs some work.
For Sentinel, like you said, an increase Threat multiplier across the board. It could be as simple as a passive effect that comes with the final 1 point Paragon feat. (All attacks now generate 10% extra threat for every target hit)
Sure Strike still needs a major boost. (Something like. Adds a bleed effect on the third hit equal to 10% of Power, can stack 3x)
Come and Get It needs a major upgrade. The Pull needs to be significantly stronger and faster. The animation should be instant. It should generate major threat. I dont even care about the damage increase effect. They can eliminate it altogether.
Grim Promise should reduce damage against the Entire Party adding a utility feature.
Actually it is not just Sentinel. I honestly feel Instigator still needs some work.
Come and Get It needs a major upgrade. The Pull needs to be significantly stronger and faster. The animation should be instant. It should generate major threat. I dont even care about the damage increase effect. They can eliminate it altogether.
.
QFT, seriously come and get it was a great idea, the dev's just never got the ball rolling it is incredibly pointless.
Actually it is not just Sentinel. I honestly feel Instigator still needs some work.
For Sentinel, like you said, an increase Threat multiplier across the board. It could be as simple as a passive effect that comes with the final 1 point Paragon feat. (All attacks now generate 10% extra threat for every target hit)
Sure Strike still needs a major boost. (Something like. Adds a bleed effect on the third hit equal to 10% of Power, can stack 3x)
Come and Get It needs a major upgrade. The Pull needs to be significantly stronger and faster. The animation should be instant. It should generate major threat. I dont even care about the damage increase effect. They can eliminate it altogether.
Grim Promise should reduce damage against the Entire Party adding a utility feature.
Only problem with this is that the GF currently has to sacrifice both multiple feats and powers to have a build that generates threat. This means they have to sacrifice either damage, or survivability, plus they have to use a slot for those feats to have any affect, meaning a slot that cant be used for damage or survivability feats, this is in my opinion why you see so many complaints about threat generation and GFs. Threat comes from first being seen by the mob first, healing targets the mob has on it's hate list, damaging the mob, and using control affects on the mob. The problem with the feats and powers is they give threat % only when the mob is marked by a taunt the GF uses, and damaged by the GF that marked them. So as a GF if you taunt/mark a target, but don't hit it, the mark really has no affect until you do. If GWF had passive threat generation it would actually put them much ahead of GFs who actually don't. I think the only way they could bring this in line is to add feats and powers that the GWF could spec into just like a GF but then the question would be, would people actually spec into them rather than taking damage/survivability feats/powers instead.
That's precisely what I'm suggesting, it wouldn't even have to be drastic, there's already feats in the sentinel tree that boosts threat they're just working horribly, 10% of our power gets a 100% threat boost! Woo! So the 400 ish damage (before damage resistance) sets in gets a boost! That's ......nothing. I'm not asking for super duper mega taunt where all mobs have to attack me, but is 25-50% boost in threat weapon master generates and an extra 25-50% for sure strike too much to ask for? (Also to clarify I fully support that you should have to spend feats for this, obviously dps GWF's wouldn't need it. I'm all for GF's getting a threat boost too, I've had to tank when I was dps, simply because once I got aggro I couldn't stop and we had to burn the boss down or die. It's not a good design and it (for lack of a better term) is fairly emasculating to a tank's ego to lose threat especially when it's a boss, there entire purpose for being there.
TLDR Yes, GF's deserve a threat boost too and I am not saying it has to be free, I will pay the feats I assure you.
Also I didn't see the last point, yes we would because threat is our main issue our survivability is great right now even while passing up points that would boost our survivability to get points to boost our threat. (Gear as well.)
Sounds like we are on the same page then. GWF is really just a warrior. It's a bit late for it now, but when you think about it if they had made it so instead of the GWF being a different class altogether they could have had it as a paragon path for the GF. This could have solved a few of these issues, the threat feats could have been available to both, the taunts as well, and they could have even made it so as a GWF in the GF paragon path you could parry with the sword and block attacks similar to the shield block.
And this is part of why not getting capstone is almost viable as a GWF. Even with all our other almost works systems, the non-capstone is likely a tad sub-par for that as well because the 5ac ability in the sent tree is at the 20pt. range.
It's possible that newer paths could become more specialized for the GWF.
Sounds like we are on the same page then. GWF is really just a warrior. It's a bit late for it now, but when you think about it if they had made it so instead of the GWF being a different class altogether they could have had it as a paragon path for the GF. This could have solved a few of these issues, the threat feats could have been available to both, the taunts as well, and they could have even made it so as a GWF in the GF paragon path you could parry with the sword and block attacks similar to the shield block.
Seriously they could fix all of this if they just added the monkey grip feat....
Comments
More tank-capable classes are always good so as to cut down the queues, and extra threat-gen is irrelevant in PvP anyway.
Makes me want to cry.
And the bigger issue.. Stacking CWs is probably still a better tanking method than using a GWF will ever be..
Devs pretty fail on this one
Even GF threat generation stinks and needs some tweaking. The way the mechanic works and the considerable amount of AOE attacks that every class gets makes it almost impossible to 'tank' in the traditional sense. So you have to be creative even as a GF tank.
Geared groups don't need tanks. Lets face it the below statement posted by pandapaul is accurate.
It's even true about the GF, some people might argue but if you stack enough CWs you can just throw a rogue in the mix to dodge tank.
It all comes down to lack of real play testing. When you make it possible for every class to succeed in every situation, players these days will tend to exploit that for all it's worth. Heck with the rogue changes coming, if they ever decided to buff CWs for who the heck reasons knows why, it's all together possible end game content would consist of groups of five CWs.
Yeah I've noticed that the idea of tanking entire groups seems to be an impossibility but if you're going to have a tank it should perform this task. I really don't even get how a CW will pull threat since (at least in my cases) I'll be out damaging a purely CCing CW, so in terms of raw damage you would assume that I'd have threat over the CW unless of course their pull and gravity well abilities have a much higher threat amount than my aoeing does, but that just seems like backwards programming.
Which is exactly why GF's and (hopefully) GWF's need appropriate threat management so that there is some degree of incentive to have them over 5 CW's or 4 CW's and a TR. Although threat management is hardly the cure for that, but let's save that issue for another day.
Come and get its range and target limit do make it a joke of an encounter. Kinda like nobody using spinning blade once they can use slam/avalanche of steel. Maybe they should redesign that daily longer duration less damage per hit and nonstop come and get it affect on all targets in the area while active.
I do think that control affects should have more threat gain than just normal attacks. And I can see how it could be arguable that control effects would even have more threat gain than normal attacks/damage. Healing has always had threat gain in game like this as just a work around for better mob AI. I will agree though as far as damage/control effects/healing goes the threat gain is just a big question mark in this game.
Exactly. It's a mix of so many issues together that a band-aid to threat isn't going to really fix things.
Learning how to cancel WMS animation is definitely a game changer for GWFs who want to maximize DPS and Threat.
As far as CC effects gathering more threat, I guess what I meant was it would be nice if there was some rock/paper/scissor effect that a tank (GWF included) could do in response to someone gaining a large amount of threat, rather than just spamming your greatest aoe damaging ability and hoping it sticks.
Lastly, for proponents of keeping GF as the only tank, I just don't see the point it just adds to the game it's not like if GWF was viable no one would want a GF have you seen how broken block is?
For Sentinel, like you said, an increase Threat multiplier across the board. It could be as simple as a passive effect that comes with the final 1 point Paragon feat. (All attacks now generate 10% extra threat for every target hit)
Sure Strike still needs a major boost. (Something like. Adds a bleed effect on the third hit equal to 10% of Power, can stack 3x)
Come and Get It needs a major upgrade. The Pull needs to be significantly stronger and faster. The animation should be instant. It should generate major threat. I dont even care about the damage increase effect. They can eliminate it altogether.
Grim Promise should reduce damage against the Entire Party adding a utility feature.
QFT, seriously come and get it was a great idea, the dev's just never got the ball rolling it is incredibly pointless.
Only problem with this is that the GF currently has to sacrifice both multiple feats and powers to have a build that generates threat. This means they have to sacrifice either damage, or survivability, plus they have to use a slot for those feats to have any affect, meaning a slot that cant be used for damage or survivability feats, this is in my opinion why you see so many complaints about threat generation and GFs. Threat comes from first being seen by the mob first, healing targets the mob has on it's hate list, damaging the mob, and using control affects on the mob. The problem with the feats and powers is they give threat % only when the mob is marked by a taunt the GF uses, and damaged by the GF that marked them. So as a GF if you taunt/mark a target, but don't hit it, the mark really has no affect until you do. If GWF had passive threat generation it would actually put them much ahead of GFs who actually don't. I think the only way they could bring this in line is to add feats and powers that the GWF could spec into just like a GF but then the question would be, would people actually spec into them rather than taking damage/survivability feats/powers instead.
TLDR Yes, GF's deserve a threat boost too and I am not saying it has to be free, I will pay the feats I assure you.
Also I didn't see the last point, yes we would because threat is our main issue our survivability is great right now even while passing up points that would boost our survivability to get points to boost our threat. (Gear as well.)
Sounds like we are on the same page then. GWF is really just a warrior. It's a bit late for it now, but when you think about it if they had made it so instead of the GWF being a different class altogether they could have had it as a paragon path for the GF. This could have solved a few of these issues, the threat feats could have been available to both, the taunts as well, and they could have even made it so as a GWF in the GF paragon path you could parry with the sword and block attacks similar to the shield block.
It's possible that newer paths could become more specialized for the GWF.
Seriously they could fix all of this if they just added the monkey grip feat....